The struggle for freedom and sanity in society is a constant one. Societal leaders relentlessly place standards and requirements on people, and this produces a detrimental effect in many cases. The unavoidable contradiction between the interest of the whole and the cause of the individual creates serious imbalances and struggles in society. Another serious issue facing individualists today is the battle for resistance to oppression; public leaders are constantly on the move to suppress differing ideas, and the breakdown of personal opinion poses a threat to self-interest.
[...] The oppressive warden of the institution, although weathered by the unyielding McMurphy, is assisted by her aides, and once again her powerful authority triumphs over the individual. As McMurphy falls deeper and deeper in to insanity, Nurse Ratched regains her stance. Yet, Nurse Ratched will decidedly never be the same, and never will the ward McMurphy has instilled an ideal, a hunger for more in the other patients, which may never die, as “McMurphy's will lives in the men of the ward” forever (Atkinson 74). [...]
[...] McMurphy is the voice of individuality in the novel, and he uses this voice to provoke rebellion, self-interest, and change within the confined walls of the mental institution. Although McMurphy has his own agenda and goals for the group, he also is an assertive proponent of the development of goals for his peers. Thoreau echoes the nonconformist ideals of the controlled, by saying that a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. [...]
[...] These “fantasies” come to represent Nurse Ratched's over-idealized world, and McMurphy does everything within his power to resist her, including bringing women in to the ward and breaking out of the ward for an afternoon of fishing. However, McMurphy's bold comments infuriate Nurse Ratched more than his actions ever could. His forceful questions and harsh attacks ostensibly produce no reaction in Nurse Ratched, but both McMurphy and Nurse Ratched can feel the swelling tension between each other (the other patients seem to catch on to McMurphy's ways as well). [...]
[...] While McMurphy finds laughter to be freeing and to release tensions, he also comes to “recognize that a power transfer seems to take place between them and Big Nurse when their laughter disrupts her authority” (Mills 103). Although Nurse Ratched may be undermined by laughter and the openness of McMurphy's schemes, her vice grip on the entire ward and the minute details of the lives of each patient constantly exists, and may always stay in constant battle with the hopes of the patients. The key elements of conflict in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - freedom, oppression, and sanity [...]
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